The youngest American to be made a bishop, he died while still defending himself against allegations of sexual abuse.

Howard J. Hubbard, a once lionized “street priest” who became the nation’s youngest bishop at 38 and presided over the Albany, N.Y., diocese longer than any of his predecessors, then acknowledged covering up sex abuse scandals and was himself sued for sexually abusing children, died on Saturday in Albany. He was 84.

His death, in a hospital, was caused by a stroke, his spokesman, Mark Behan, said.

Bishop Hubbard, whose upstate New York diocese encompassed more than 300,000 Roman Catholics in 125 parishes in 14 counties, was widely regarded as a progressive voice in the church on social issues like the death penalty and the ordination of women, though he unsuccessfully sued the state in 1984 to block the approval of two abortion clinics in the diocese.

But when he resigned in 2014…